They Could've Burned
by Lyselle
Summary: A long way into her life, The Girl On Fire pauses and reflects on what could've been. One shot.


**Disclaimer: I do not own the Hunger Games (obviously)**

I healed slowly after the war. Baby steps. The only two things I had to focus on were staying alive and being there for Peeta as he healed beside me. Get up. Wash your face. Eat. Sleep. Eat. Sleep. Repeat. Simple routine, and as the months passed, with the help of Haymitch, Peeta, and Greasy Sae, I was able to add more activities to my routine. Get up. Wash face. Brush teeth. Brush hair. Cook. Eat. Sing. Watch Peeta paint. Eat. Clean dishes. Sleep.

Peeta and I lived in my old house, the one I grew up in, that miraculously survived the war, although a lot of adjustments had to made to it. Greasy Sae visited almost everyday, cooking when I forgot how to, feeding me when I didn't have the will. Gradually, after a few years, she began telling me stories about what happened when I was gone. I listened intently, crying every few minutes, but I kept myself together. Peeta would be sent away with Haymitch during this time, or he was painting or baking cookies.

Eventually, when Greasy Sae thought I could handle it, Gale and Prim made appearances in the stories. "Gale was a shadow of himself," Sae told me, "He would talk to me even less than usual. He agreed easily to even the most unfair of trades. Darius even tried teasing him about you, but nothing caught the poor boy's attention. He actually ended up spending a lot of nights in the Hob, when he couldn't bear to go back home to two starving families, and the Games became too much for him."

I barely ever went hunting again. It felt so wrong. There was too much empty space in the woods without my hunting partner, and I felt jumpy without having the 360 degree view of the forest. A lot of days I just went and sat in the forest, waiting for Gale to come up behind me in that eerily silent way he did. Of course, he never came.

At some point, I forgave Gale while sitting there in the woods. Hadn't I killed so many children? Didn't I do my fair share of injustices? Gale would always have that connection to Prim's death, but I lost the will to blame it on Gale. Instead, I blamed the Capitol. The Games. It was like there were two halves of myself, one of them convincing the other that it wasn't Gale. It wasn't his fault.

Over the years, at some point, I married Peeta. Did I think of Gale at my wedding? I hate myself for it, but yes. I didn't even change my last name to Mellark. I just tacked it on to my maiden name, making me Katniss Mellark-Everdeen. I didn't want to let go of the old Katniss. For some reason, I felt that if I wasn't Katniss Mellark, then somehow I didn't totally belong to Peeta. I could still pretend to be normal, I could still be Katniss Everdeen, the girl from the Seam. I could still be Catnip, the girl who hunted with her best friend and made a living off illegal meat.

My first daughter had unfortunately inherited Peeta's clumsy, loud footsteps, so she couldn't hunt at all. I had tried to teach her numerous times, to no avail. She was a total daddy's girl, listening to whatever Peeta said and excelling at painting and having that same air of confidence when she spoke. She was beautiful, she was my sweet little girl, but I couldn't help feel a tiny twinge of regret whenever I thought of my bow and arrows, lying in a closet and rotting.

My son, however, five years younger than his sister, reminded me exactly of Gale. His name was Gabriel, a name that Peeta liked, but I had accidentally called him Gale enough times to cause Haymitch and Sae to raise their eyebrows. Peeta pretended not to notice. Gabriel had the same deathly silent footsteps, the same knack for snares. It hurt to look at him moving in the forest sometimes, seeing how achingly similar they were.

I felt unfulfilled in life, even though I had a husband, beautiful children, and my home, but there was still a deep emptiness inside of me that hit me so hard sometimes I would spend hours locked in my room, crying my eyes out. What for? I don't know. For Prim, my absent mother, my shattered, messed up life. For Gale. For I could've had with him, what we could've been.

I loved Peeta, but only to a certain extent, I realized later on. If I honestly traced down where my emptiness was coming from, it was Gale. The lack of Gale in my life. I needed him, I wanted him, I would throw away my whole life for him, but the only thing that was holding me back were my children, and the guilt of hurting Peeta again. If I had the chance to go back in time, I would run away with him before the Quarter Quell. I missed the way his silvery eyes would cut into mine, the way we couldn't keep even our darkest thoughts to ourselves. No matter what I told myself, I could never have that kind of bond with Peeta.

Peeta and I had went through the Games together. We were an anchor for each other, we had saved each other's lives countless times. But Gale had done just as much for me. Helping keep my family alive for four years, giving me support when I needed it. He juggled a 6 day mining job and hunting illegally to keep my family alive.

If only Prim hadn't been reaped. If only Peeta hadn't been reaped. If we both survived the Hunger Games another year. I could see it clearly then, the boy and the girl who were always together, falling in love over time and getting married, even though they said they wouldn't.

Problem was, the 'falling in love over time' thing had already happened, but in the wrong circumstances.

It was him. It was Gale. Gale is mine, I am his. I chose him, I chose him a long time ago. But even then, even then it was already too late.


End file.
